Many of us wear crosses as jewelry. Our homes may have them hanging on walls, sitting on furniture, in paintings or other crafty projects on display. They are not hard to see if we look. But perhaps they are so present that we don’t notice them.
I am reminded of a visit to Coventry, in England, in 2010. There is a cathedral there, built between 1956 and 1962, a bit more modern in architecture than most churches. But that is not the cathedral that draws visitors—the one most visited is next door, what is left of the previous cathedral that was bombed by the Germans in World War II. Most of its walls are still standing, although the vast majority of the roof is gone. As written in their explanatory literature, “On the night of November 14th 1940 at 8 PM the first of several incendiary bombs landed on the roof of the Cathedral. By 11 PM the valiant attempts to save the magnificent building were abandoned. The water pipes had been destroyed and the sand supplies had run out. By morning, the Cathedral and much of the centre of Coventry were in ruins.
“A local priest, Rev. Arthur P. Wales, whilst surveying the damage, picked up several 14th century hand forged nails, which had fallen from the roof to the sanctuary floor. He bound them together to form crosses. One was placed on a stone altar in the ruined sanctuary, along with a cross made from charred roof beams, also saved from the rubble. This became known as the Altar of Reconciliation.
“The Cross of Nails has become known throughout the world as the symbol of Coventry Cathedral’s Ministry of Reconciliation.”
The Germans who bombed were not seeking reconciliation. The Romans, when they crucified Jesus on a cross, were not seeking reconciliation. And yet in the grace of God, and the love that is more powerful than destruction and death, the crosses from the destroyed Coventry Cathedral are about reconciliation, and the cross itself has come to be about reconciliation. God took the instrument of torturous death and made it a means to reconciliation. As is stated in 2 Corinthians 5:19: “. . .In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.”
Nest time you see a cross, think about what it really means, despite what it was meant to mean—and realize that God can turn things meant for bad to things that can be reconciled for good, and does that for us and everyone in the world.
GOSPEL Mark 8:31-37
31 Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. 32 He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. 33 But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.’
34 He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, ‘If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. 36 For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? 37 Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
NEW TESTAMENT 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength.
NEW TESTAMENT Philippians 2:5-11
5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
6 who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited,
7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.
9 Therefore God also highly exalted him
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue should confess
that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.